Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey

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There were, though, no sirens trying to lure me to my death through song. The nearest I came was when sitting in on the first rehearsal since pre-pandemic times of the Birmingham five-piece Mighty Mighty, reconvened to play to an audience of just me. But five follicly challenged men on, or just over, the brink of turning 60 do not seductive sirens make. Still, they sounded just as sprightly and glorious as they had several decades earlier, even if they now needed to take fistfuls of painkillers afterwards to ward off the effects of a four-hour rehearsal. The book casts an eye over a period when indie was a passion not a brand, and places its rise firmly in the context of the turbulent political times. Based on primary source material – including scores of forgotten fanzines -it also draws in the views of many of the key players, opening a window on a period that, with its parallels, resonates strongly today. The C86 name was a play on the labelling and length of blank compact cassette, commonly C60, C90 and C120, combined with 1986. Following on from acclaimed histories of the British punk upheaval of the late 1970s (Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming) and the post-punk ferment of the early 80s (Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again); Neil Taylor’s new book takes the story forward to cover the next wave of groundbreaking musicians, dubbed the “C86 bands” after a now-legendary cassette compilation released by music weekly NME, whose work paved the way for the commercial breakthrough of indie later in the decade.

C86 is out now! - Cherry Red Records C85 | Our prequel to C86 is out now! - Cherry Red Records

C86 & All That: The Creation of Indie In Difficult Times comprehensively documents the rise of indie during the socially-divisive 1980s, tracing its ancestry out of Post Punk, Neo Psychedelia, Anarcho Punk, Garage, Trash and Goth and on to the landmark compilation C86 in the spring of 1986. C86 slowly but surely became the NME’s best-selling ever compilation, selling an estimated 40,000 copies and eventually being reissued on LP and cassette by Rough Trade the following year. C86 prompted a week of shows at the ICA and would come to embody a whole musical style and era.

Magnus Crawshaw

Post Punk is where the action was when the generation of youth who had their minds scorched by Punk started to apply their own interpretation to music and culture. In this creative free for all barriers were broken and a fervent underground existed way beyond the mainstream. Neil Taylor has taken a dive into this bricolage culture and come up trumps as he tries to make sense of the senseless when a generation thought that music could change the world’

C86 and All That: The Birth of Indie, 1983-86 - Goodreads

In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which 'indie' was born. In 1986, along with many other dedicated NME readers, I sent off for their latest cassette compilation. I had them all. Every one. Didn't matter what the genre, I was all in. This one, C86, went on to define an era and probably marks the moment "indie" music was born. The independent chart had been going for some time but indie the genre ultimately became synonymous with white guitar pop. Reggae and early hiphop. Roxanne Roxanne etc. Certainly was played on Peel so counts as alternative if not indie as genre. This is a book for those of us, now in our late 50s or early 60s, who grew up devouring the NME as a means of nurturing our music tastes as well as broader cultural interests. It may also help to be male, perhaps?Indie music and festivals - C86 review of c86 week". Indie-mp3.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2015-09-08 . Retrieved 2015-06-11. C86 has been much-maligned over the year, a short-hand insult for fey white boys with floppy fringes and over-strenuous strumming playing shambling indie numbers. In truth, it was always waaay more diverse than that. Bogshed and A Witness were probably closer to The Fall and Stump...well they were just Stump! And believe it or not, whilst admittedly outnumbered, females were also present. ABOUT USLouder Than War is a music, culture and media publication headed by The Membranes & Goldblade frontman John Robb. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net. In retrospect, we were probably slightly more established than most of the other bands, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time. We were just honored to be on an NME tape, having read the magazine for years, and perhaps a bit guileless about how it might affect us. But I can understand why, say, the June Brides didn’t want to be on the tape, and how some of the less established bands might be pigeonholed by it, especially when the scene seemed to have run its course.

C86 and All That: The Birth of Indie, 1983-86 - Goodreads C86 and All That: The Birth of Indie, 1983-86 - Goodreads

One by one they agreed to be interviewed. Invariably, they would ask who else had confirmed. If, say, members of the Pastels or Age of Chance or the Mighty Lemon Drops were on board, that was enough for them. Some would tender old phone numbers of their former bandmates, keen for each of these missing persons cases to be solved. In the end, no band wanted to be left out, for their story not to be told. When I secured an interview with the drummer from the 22nd and last band to respond, I punched the air in delight. Relief, too. Hitting play on a piece of music is an act of magic. The noise may be entering your own space and filling up your ears, but in fact it’s the other way around; it drags you, willing or otherwise, to a world usually much more interesting than your own. Over a quarter-of-a-century on, pressing play on the C86 mixtape still has that transporting impact – it opens up a portal to a different world. You're right of course MSD, no offence meant. Just took a stab in the dark as to my untrained eye I wondered if any other than the Slits might fail in your ballpark. I also though "Indie" was pretty inaccurate.I’m guessing the book had a fairly niche audience but I found it hugely enjoyable and also it led me to explore some of the bands that I didn’t know so well, with the help of Spotify. Yet, while the pursuit of long-lost musicians can often manifest as earnest hagiography, Tassell's unique, light-hearted approach makes this a very human story of ambition, hope, varying degrees of talent and what happens after you give up on pop - or, more precisely, after pop gives up on you. It's a world populated by bike-shop owners, architecture professors, dance-music producers, record-store proprietors, birdwatchers, solicitors, caricaturists and even a possible Olympic sailor - and let's not forget the musician-turned-actor gainfully employed as Jeremy Irons' body double... In 1986, the NME released a cassette that would shape music for years to come. A collection of twenty-two independently signed guitar-based bands, C86 was the sound and ethos that defined a generation. It was also arguably the point at which ‘indie’ was born.